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The Colors of Life,
Part 2

Upstairs, Frida's bed was often her world for long periods of
time, and around it she gathered an array of necessary or attractive
items. Overhead, she could see her reflected image in the canopy's
mirror. Lying in bed, she could paint with the ingenious wooden easel
that her mother had ordered built for her long ago. Her headboard
was completely covered with photographs of people dear to her -- her
sisters and father, her family grouped around her when she was a
child, her niece and nephew, her close friend Pita Amor. Alongside
,hung portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Nearby
were her collections of toys, pre-Hispanic pieces, and mounted
butterflies. Paintbrushes, pencils, her diary, and assorted bright-hued
objects completed the decoration. The room was redolent of
medicines and perfume.

Frida was often heard to say, "I look like a lot of people and a
few things," as if everything that made up her personal appearance
was a matter of chance. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Dressing
each day was an almost ceremonial affair during which she would try
innumerable combinations of blouses and skirts. Her clothes were
always immaculately clean and freshly ironed; she was meticulous
about the appearance of her pleated petticoats, pure white and
starched. She wore native Mexican costumes long after her sophisticated
friends had given up this nationalistic gesture, in part for the
long skirts that hid her thin leg and orthopedic shoe.

Frida's favorite costume was from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
and she twice painted herself wearing it, in Self-Portrait as a
Tehuana (Diego in My Thoughts) (1943) and Self-Portrait (1948).
She confided to a journalist, however, that "there was a time long ago
when I dressed like a boy, with short hair, pants, boots, and a leather
vest. But when I went to see Diego, I put on a Tehuana outfit. I have
never been in Tehuantepec ... but of all the Mexican costumes, it is
the one I like the most."

Frida selected her jewelry each day with equal care, especially
the rings she wore on the fingers of both hands. She meticulously
applied her makeup and painted her fingernails, sometimes purple,
green, or orange, according to what best harmonized with the day's
outfit. She used to say she dressed de chango, like a monkey, for fun,
in a silly and playful way. Bertram Wolfe declared that "her appearance
would have seemed outlandish were it not for the artistry with
which she designed and adorned herself."

Although she never approached the size of her portly mother
and stout older sisters, nor even the plumpness of her younger sister,
Cristina, Frida worried about maintaining her slender figure. Only a
little over five feet two inches tall, she seemed taller because of the
heightening effect of her long skirts, accentuated even more by her
elegantly long neck and by her upswept hairdo with bows and flowers
arranged on top of her head. Her olive skin was covered with a light
fuzz; her upper lip had a pronounced moustache, which she made
obvious in her self-portraits. The dark, heavy eyebrows that grew
together across her forehead she turned into a trademark, representing
them in her paintings as a bird, a swallow in flight.

When she was finally finished dressing, she looked "like a
princess, like an empress," according to the descriptions most often
used by her contemporaries. Scrupulously clean and heavily perfumed,
'she was as resplendent as a rainbow, ready for one more day.

Frequently she was preparing for sessions with prominent
photographers from the United States and Mexico. Since childhood
a subject of her father's photographs, she had a true love of the
camera and its results. She posed for Edward Weston, Hector
Garda, Imogen Cunningham, Manuel and Lola Alvarez Bravo,
Nickolas Muray, Guillermo Zamora, Juan Guzman, and Bernice
Kolko, and an endless stream of photographer-fans who came to
admire and record on film her spectacular presence.

Many photographs show Frida, a heavy smoker, holding a lit
cigarette. She rarely smiled when in front of a camera; the few
photographs that catch her laughing reveal blackened teeth, often
self-consciously hidden behind her hand.

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